General Motors just announced that it is voluntarily expanding an existing recall for the Chevy Bolt EV to include the remaining 2019-model-year vehicles, as well as all 2020- through 2022-model-year vehicles. The recall also includes the recently released Chevy Bolt EUV.
“In rare circumstances, the batteries supplied to GM for these vehicles may have two manufacturing defects – a torn anode tab and folded separator – present in the same battery cell, which increases the risk of fire,” General Motors said.
Going forward, GM will replace the defective battery modules in the Chevy Bolt EV and Chevy Bolt EUV. The recall is expected to cost upwards of $1 billion.
The expanded recall follows a GM investigation into the manufacturing processes at GM’s battery cell supplier, LG Chem. The investigation uncovered manufacturing defects in certain battery cells produced at LG’s facilities “beyond the Ochang, Korea, plant.” General Motors says it is “pursuing commitments from LG for reimbursement of this action.”
The new recall includes more than 73,000 units of the Chevy Bolt EV and Chevy Bolt EUV sold in the U.S. and Canada, including 9,335 units (6,989 units in the U.S., 1,212 units in Canada) of the 2019 Chevy Bolt EV not included in the previous recall, and 63,683 units (54,403 units in the U.S. and 9,019 units in Canada) of the 2020 through 2022 Chevy Bolt EV and Chevy Bolt EUV.
Battery packs equipped with the new modules will be covered by an 8-year/100,000-mile limited warranty in the U.S., and 8-year/160,000-km limited warranty in Canada.
Customers are advised to set their Chevy Bolt EV or Chevy Bolt EUV to a 90-percent charge limitation using the Target Charge Level mode. Customers are also advised to charge their vehicle more frequently and to avoid battery depletion below 70 miles of remaining range, while also parking the vehicle outside immediately after charging. Customers should not charge their vehicle indoors overnight.
More information about recall N212345940 can be found at www.chevy.com/boltevrecall, or by calling 1-833-EVCHEVY.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more Chevy Bolt EV news, Chevy news, General Motors electric vehicle news, and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Comments
Beautiful. Nice work Mary. There goes the profit margin s.
I didn’t realize that Mary Barra also was in charge of battery development and manufacturing at LG. This is ultimately a supplier issue considering it is also affecting Hyundai/ Kia but go on blaming her for everything bad because you’re threatened by a woman running a car company.
You said it! Readers and commenters on this blog are threatened by a woman running one of America’s automakers. She’s transformed GM into a Lean, Profit Turning Automaker, that was once before her, selling vehicles at a huge loss just to move inventory.
C’mon man! You should change your name to TeslaFan… No one is threatened by Mary Barra. regardless of what she identifies as, she’s a double talking spineless shill.
To h4cksaw; Seen your swill before. You sound like a Russian troll, who spouts bull excrement endlessly. Go watch Hannity 24/7 please.
Thanks Jim. I’ll take your wonderful advice into consideration.
Totally a supplier issue, and Bolts have not been the only ones catching fire…Hyundai Kona EV’s recalled and replaced all the LG packs, VW ID.3 also with LG batteries went up in flames yesterday, and LG’s home an grid batteries have also had problems.
^ This. I really don’t know what happened to LG. I suspect they have went to fast and their QC has just suffered.
Whatever the cause, its awful, both for GM, and LG, possible for most of the OEM’s making Ev’s
LG was always crap from my experience
Mary bares huge responsibility for this because she fell for the EV koolaid.
Being an EV cultist has its price. Maybe it’s time for people to put down the pipe. Before their EV puts down their home.
still her problem for choosing crappy supplier like LG when far superior Panasonic exists! Wonder why Nissan Leaf hasn’t caught on fire?
This is only start,the NHTSA will require fire suppression systems next.
Pointless. You can’t suppress a battery fire during it’s beginning stages as it doesn’t require oxygen… The battery dissipates heat very quickly as it shorts out… This would occur regardless of fire suppressants… Granted suppressants would help limited property damage… But the vehicle would still be engulfed by damaging heat to some degree.
They need to invent a foam that suppresses the chemical reaction. It’s mindboggling to me that batteries with these reactions are driving on the road without a realistic solution yet.
Or how about we just stick to internal combustion vehicles.
If you are that worried about climate change you know they invented biofuels. Aka fuels made by plants.
The foam or retardant would have to be in the individual battery cells. They have a hard enough time squeezing 250 miles out of a BEV, I doubt making them safer will make them more convenient. Honestly, Gasoline is just far more convenient, hydrogen is probably just as safe and definitely better for the environment. BEVs just aren’t very appealing tech to literally 95% of US consumers.
The trucks will pay for the recall with more decontenting and an even crappier and cheaper interior!
Listen, here’s a crazy thought. Couldn’t you just buy buy a GMC instead of a Chevy to get a loaded interior?
It’s better to get infront of it now then years down the road and have a ruined opportunity in a efficient car line like the X-cars in the ’80s
Unfortunately the damage is done.
How?, Tesla isn’t exactly a poster boy for safety according to a Government investigation..
Probably different battery tech, but not the best PR ahead of the all-electric future.
All electric future? Lolol in your dreams.
all those companies who aren’t diving head first into the ev pool are falling behind further and further behind.
look at what they are missing out!!!!! almost $2bn in recall costs !!!!
Ironically the free money economy is coming to an end.
Let’s see how that EV investment works with 5%+ interest rates.
Ironically being a poor seller in this case may have worked in GMs favor. What’s another billion of in lost profit that LG will probably not reimburse them 100% on.
I liked the Bolt’s price, but the potential of a recall like this was a concern of mine. GM must’ve found something in order to recall the 2020-2022 models.
There was a fire in a new one with only 6000 miles last week
Thanks, I missed that one. It’s a shame, but props to GM for doing the right thing.
Yeah – Actually I’m quite impressed with GM Corporate’s actions here… They must have some semi-humans involved….Chrysler of OLD would have said these are ‘Wear Issue’ problems and just totally avoided the expense…
With only a tiny percentage of fires (and only a very few of the 2020-2022 variety) it is EXCEPTIONAL that GM is addressing this 100%. The mostly US-MADE upcoming Ultium product Just has to be being reviewed with a fine-tooth-comb before release to be over and done with this issue before huge amounts of batteries are sold..
I just received a RECALL for my former 2017 BOLT EV, (which I traded in on a 2022 EUV) – but what GM is doing for current owners of the 2017-2019’s is FANTASTIC:
1). Owners get in effect a BRAND NEW BATTERY, with a BRAND NEW WARRANTY- that starts NOW, not 5 years ago (which would be the case if I hadn’t sold the vehicle)…Also MILEAGE is reset to ZERO. So its now 100,000 further miles, not 34,000 as it would be for my 66,000 mile vehicle.
2). THE 2017-2019’s had initially a 60 kwh battery. The replacement modules will give them a whopping 8% increase in capacity. For ICE drivers this doesn’t sound like much but for old time ev drivers like myself (over 10 years now), that is a much-unexpected GIFT.
GM’s offer is almost TOO GENEROUS, but it should satisfy anyone thinking of suing GM. I didn’t know they are also going to make sure my 2022 EUV is also in tip-top shape also – although I’m a bit unclear what they are going to improve on my new car.
Its because of FANTASTIC response to a problem they are owning up to (and could have swept under the rug), that my NEXT CAR will now DEFINITELY be a GM.
Like I said they should stop using corrupt, monopolistic and oligarchical South Korean conglomates. Should have used reliable and dependable Panasonic!
Since Tesla gets batteries from Panasonic and has had fires as well, how does that help?
They are gone. GM doesn’t conceive its own batteries and here’s the result! They claim damages to LG. I think they would have to give up LG and buy a good and innovative company specialized in batteries as they made for the driverless cars! LG is a shame!
LG is one of the worlds leading battery suppliers. There is only a handful that makes automotive cells at scale.
Dennis Constantinos is correct, Panasonic produces a far superior battery package. Tesla has been using Panasonic for their primary battery supplier for years. Its quit obvious a Japanese manufacturer is going to create a better product than a Korean one. I’m sure GM chose LG Chem because they were the lowest cost choice. GM most certainly takes some of the blame for this disaster as they chose an inferior battery.
Tesla has had battery fires as well and they use Panasonic cells. They just lost a lawsuit where they used over-the-air updates to permanently reduced the range on some model S to do what GM has customers manually doing until their car is fixed. The difference is Tesla isn’t going to ever replace the pack. A brand new Model S Plaid just caught fire a couple of weeks ago with Panasonic batteries. So let’s stop pretending Panasonic is some holy grail of cell producers.
this is what happens when the govt dictates to companies what and how their products are to be built.
So the US government is telling a South Korean company how to make battery cells????
no the govt is telling the manufactures and YOU what to drive’
Lithium ion batteries can catch fire. It’s a flammable liquid. Why at the airport do they make you stow certain devices with these batteries? Exploding cell phones, hover skates catching on fire. It’s rare but it does happen. Now let’s put 100 million evs on the road and the numbers will go up naturally. I ask what will happen to ev adoption when the inevitable house fire occurs from someone charging and loss of life occurs.
To Jake and others:
GM, by replacing modules on every SINGLE vehicle of the 2017-2019 Bolt EVs, and also doing a recall of every SINGLE 2020-2022 Bolt Ev and EUV – including the new 2022 I just purchased – means that GM is taking ZERO CHANCES WITH THEIR CUSTOMERS’ HOMES OR LIVES, even though the possibility of trouble with any single vehicle is extremely remote.
I have never seen an automaker do the RIGHT THING so Completely, with such an expensive recall. They obviously expect LG Chem to foot a portion of the bill.
Gasoline is a flammable liquid…
but it is not self igniting like an overheating battery
What kind of pollution comes from burning batteries vs a gasoline powered cars exhaust? What environmental impact?. And the the things are expensive.
Lots of recalls for spontaneous fires when filling up your gas tank? The issue here is your ev can spontaneously catch on fire when charging, and many people who charge evs do it at home. When you fill up your gas tank look up, fire suppression system. Now all I am stating is it is inevitable that someone will charge at home and start a fire and if enough of these happen, people will die. And we all know the media will be allllll over this and my question is, what will that do to adoption?
this whole EV thing is to raise money for the politicians thru political donations from people on both sides of the issue
I remember a week ago some gm lovers on here were posting the newer Bolts don’t have the fire problem. You know who you are and you didn’t know what you were talking about again.
Daniel:
Yogi Berra said ‘ Predictions are a difficult business – especially when you are talking about the future!’.
No one knows exactly every ramification of every single battery module manufactured.
When these fires started happening (there have *NOT* been that many – realistically, and a far fewer percentage of the 2020-2022 models have caught fire – as of today there are perhaps one or two), GM took action to address the problem BASED ON IMPERFECT KNOWLEDGE they had at the time.
This explains the multiple recalls – as GM is learning more with every passing month….
(I suspect there may also have been in the past, a problem with their charging system occasionally going ‘nuts’ and overcharging the batteries – as once I had my vehicle set to stop at 90% state-of-charge, and it was still going at 95% – but GM has not mentioned a problem with this to date. It may have been that I had an early 2017 model that they are aware of and quietly fixed the issue with one of the several recalls).
WHATEVER (as they say) – GM NOW is doing the right thing and is actually doing quite a bit more than anyone can reasonably expect.
A $Billion is a lot of money to GM and LG-CHEM – that is true. But it is a learning experience for everyone involved – to – as a for instance – make the upcoming US-MADE ULTIUM batteries flawless from the get-go.
Another fine MESS Ollie ! – isn’t LG a Chinese company and Panasonic a superior product from Japanese. Another big buck recall we are still waiting for our 2021 Buick Encore GX jack replacement recall ,after reprogramming our defective radio / computer took six months ,and now this ?
LG is Korean but that doesn’t change the fact that Panasonic creates a better product.
Great first EV product launch by gm and lg. Flush a billion dollars + to maybe fix. Probably also headed many people to Tesla and other EV manufacturers.
Industry has to find a better way to extinguish fires in EV batteries whether caused by charging, collision or other means. My neighbor charges his Tesla outside 30′ from any structure. Wondering about the safety of charging our Tesla in the garage? Sure glad we passed on the Bolt even though it was less expensive.
Headline to this news story says recall is extended to ALL Bolt EVs, but in reading, only 2019 thru 2022 Bolts are mentioned as being eligible for the recall – what about the 2017 and 2018 Bolts?
… Please read the first sentence again….
“expanding an existing recall for the Chevy Bolt EV to include the remaining 2019-model-year vehicles, as well as all 2020- through 2022-model-year vehicles. “
The new Pinto.
I would assume that GM will get part of the money from LG for these packs.
Just a few days ago GM was stating that 2021 and 2022 did not have any battery problems . I am that the end of my 2019 Bolt lease, I was thinking to get another Bolt, but after looking at the way the battery problem was handled since the beginning, I decided to go with another EV option